


Because They First Loved Us

by iamfitzwilliamdarcy



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5016910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamfitzwilliamdarcy/pseuds/iamfitzwilliamdarcy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce unexpectedly connects with M. Fauchelevent while stuck in 19th century France. The two have more in common than they might think; children, even grown ones, have a way of bringing people together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because They First Loved Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catie_writes_things](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catie_writes_things/gifts).



> I figure Cosette's probably about 15 in this (and Marius has started hanging around a bit) and Dick is in his mid-twenties or so

_“You can’t defend yourself against these tykes. They take you, they hold on to you, they never let go of you. The truth is, there is never any amour like that child.” –Les Misérables_

Bruce Wayne had had quite enough of time travel, thank you very much, but it never seemed quite done with him. He still wasn’t sure how it happened, but he and Dick had been blending into 19th century France for nearly a month now. It helped, having Dick along, was less lonely than before, even if they still bickered half the time.

It also helped to have the aid of a wealthy near-recluse. They had stumbled across M. Fauchelevent and his charming daughter in the park not but a few hours after their arrival, and Dick, in halting French, had managed to convey the nuts and bolts of their story—they were lost Americans with no money and no way to return home.

Fauchelevent had seemed suspicious at first, but some pity moved his heart, and he invited them to stay with him until they could figure out their situation. They had been more in search of information, but they took it. Bruce didn’t like to be dependent on others, but he was grateful, for the man’s kindness.

“You didn’t have to,” Dick said that night, in the room they were sharing. “I’m an adult, I would have been fine.”

Bruce gave him a look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dick shrugged. “Whatever you say, B.”

Bruce looked at him a moment longer, then said, “Brush up on your French.” Dick rolled his eyes, but neither of them had needed to use it in a while, and they were both rusty.

Cosette and Dick hit it off real well, Bruce thought. Cosette had even started introducing Dick as “ _mon cousin_.” She was a bit of light in his life; he missed home, Bruce could tell, missed his brothers and Cass and Alfred and the rest of his friends, was lonely.

Bruce could read people well enough to tell that Cosette was lonely too; in all the time he’d been there, he’d never seen her in the company of anyone but her father. Bruce didn’t know what Fauchelevent was hiding—Bruce was hiding things too, and they danced around each other, politely keeping their secrets—but he understood protecting a child, keeping them close.

They didn’t get out much. Bruce wanted to avoid suspicion as much as possible; he was never entirely sure why Fauchelevent didn’t, but he only had to be around the man for a day to know that Fauchelevent was hiding something. They did go for walks, though, frequently, through the streets, through the parks. Cosette and Dick would bounce on ahead, leaving Bruce and Fauchelevent behind, some type of rear guard on constant alert.

Sometimes, they went to bring bread to the poor, and it touched parts of Bruce he couldn’t begin to think about (those parts that often tread close to Jason and they hurt, they hurt they hurt). He caught Dick watching the people crowd around Fauchelevent one day, but he couldn’t read his expression.

They found their ways to amuse themselves otherwise. Often, Dick and Bruce stayed in the room they’d been giving, discussing plans to try to get home. One day, though, the sun was so inviting that Dick had escaped outside the house.

So, apparently had, Cosette, though they hadn’t made it far and settled in Cosette’s wild garden where Cosette tried to teach Dick a particularly popular dance. Bruce found Fauchelevent watching them from a window. They were both laughing as he tried to follow her lead.

Bruce sometimes forgot how charming Dick could be, but he wasn’t interested in Cosette, he knew, and Cosette didn’t seem interested, for which was more the grateful for that when he caught sight of Fauchelevent watching them intensely. Besides, Cosette was far too young for Dick, though Bruce didn’t say so because those sorts of things didn’t make much of a difference in this century, it seemed.

“He has a girlfriend, back home,” Bruce said instead, and Fauchelevent startled. Bruce stopped next to him, turned his attention to watch the kids outside. “You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Fauchelevent said, defensive, then sighed. “Though he is charming, your son.”

Bruce swelled, the way he usually did when someone complimented Dick, called him his son. There was always a tinge of guilt associated with it, like he’d stolen something from John Grayson, the reminder that he’d only been so fortunate because tragedy had touched Dick’s life.

“He is,” Bruce agreed, thinking of how he’d won over the housekeeper Toussaint in a matter of hours. Not, Bruce thought ruefully, that that would have been particularly hard, except she seemed rather distrustful of Bruce himself.

“He does not call you father,” Fauchelevent said, casually, but his eyes were sharp on Bruce. “Just your first name.”

“No,” Bruce agreed easily. “He is—uh, he isn’t my son per se. His parents died, when he was young. I took him in.”

Something stirred in Fauchelevent’s eyes, and then he turned to gaze back out the window where Cosette was correcting Dick’s position. He surprised her a moment later by executing the move perfectly and showing off by twirling her. He knew how to dance and had always been a fast learner.

“Cosette’s adopted as well,” Fauchelevent said, voice soft, a confession. Bruce could barely hear him.

“I made a promise to her mother,” Fauchelevent added when Bruce didn’t say anything. It was the closest he’d come to mentioning Fantine in years, and the silence that often surrounded her weighed heavily on his heart. “I sometimes wonder if I have kept it.”

Bruce understood. He’d made his own promise and broken it more times than he could count, had spent full days and nights agonizing over it. He nodded, as close as he wanted to come at the moment to admitting he knew exactly what Fauchelevent meant.

Fauchelevent continued. “I never expected—I,” he paused, shook his head. “I never knew what it was to love someone, before her.”

“They kind of take you by surprise.” The words slipped out, startling him because Bruce was Bad at Emotions, he knew it, everyone knew it, he’d been told more times than he can count, though Dick would often pat him fondly on the shoulder after so he guessed it was never too traumatizing for them.

Of course, other times it ended in screaming matches and silent treatments and leaving and not visiting for months. But that never  _lasted_ , so how bad could it be? He could almost feel Dick’s eye roll at the thought and Alfred’s stern glare. He shook his head, clearing his mind.

Fauchelvent looked at him expectantly, and Bruce sighed. “I, uh, my parents also died, when I was young,” he said. “I remember what it was like, to all of the sudden be on your own, to have no one. I took him in and thought I was helping him, saving him from some terrible fate.”

“And it was really the other way around,” Fauchelevent finished for him. Bruce winced a bit at how trite and cliché it sounded, but Fauchelevent didn’t seem to notice. And anyway, it was true even if it was a bit cheesy.

Fauchelevent was quiet for a minute before continuing, “I was not a good man, in my youth, Monsieur Wayne. It would break her heart to know. I thought I had learned love from a man who once showed me mercy, but I have come to learn that I knew little indeed of love.

“I had nephews and nieces, but holding your own child, her small hand in yours, her doting eyes—it was another matter entirely. I said I did not know love before her, Monsieur, and that is true in two ways: I did not know how to love and I did not know how to  _be_  loved. But how can you deny her her affection? I am a sinful man, I do not deserve it, but she delights in it, and what a fool I would be to not also allow myself joy.

“And you know, I sometimes think if I can do right by her, I might atone for my sins.” He paused again and shook his head. “I am still not a good man, Monsieur, but my Cosette—she is good.”

“A light,” Bruce said, thinking of the literal darkness he’d wallowed in for years before Dick showed up. The Cave was still dark, but even now, there was a different atmosphere. It wasn’t perfect—Bruce still sulked too much, still hurt Dick, Alfred, his kids, and Dick still got angry with him—but he was never alone, not really, not even when he pretended he was better of that way.

He thought of one night in particular, in Dick’s early days as Robin, when he’d come late, so late the sun was nearly up, and Dick was asleep in the chair at the computer console, curled up in pajamas after having been sent home hours and hours ago. It’d been a bad night, long and frustrating, and Bruce was exhausted, but just seeing Dick had been enough to make him smile.

Dick had woken when he came in, and given Bruce a bleary little smile. He’d seemed to sense the kind of night he’d had because when Bruce came over to see him, to scold him a little for not being in bed and ask him what he was doing down in a cold, dark cave, Dick hadn’t even let him have a chance to speak—he’d reached out, still mostly asleep, and patted Bruce’s stubbly cheek and said, in all his 10-year-old earnestness, “I’m glad you’re home.”

He wondered, suddenly, what his life would have been like without Dick in it. Often, his daydreams and what-if fantasies focused on his life had his parents not died, but would he have ever known Dick Grayson then? Would his heart have ever learned that loving didn’t always end in loss, didn’t always end in hurt? Would he have been the same person; would the others still have come, had Dick not paved the way? Would he have allowed them to?

“Yes,” Fauchelevent agreed, drawing Bruce away from his thoughts. “Yes. A light. I dragged her into a life of danger—she knows nothing of this, Monsieur, and I’m sure you will understand that it must be kept that way—and often I think she might be better off somewhere else, but for all I talk of love, I am a selfish man and cannot bear the thought of her leaving me.”

Bruce didn’t press; he knew about bringing children into a dangerous life. He knew about selfishness. “She will, though,” he said instead. “Leave, I mean.”

Dick had left and Bruce had forced him to leave and it hurt, still, to think about those things, but time and time again, they’d come back to each other. Was it the nature of growing up, of growing old?

“I know. And when she no longer needs me, I will do my best to let her go.” Fauchelevent sighed, staring absently out the window where the two kids still danced. He looked troubled, and Bruce wondered if he’d tread on a topic too close to home, if there was talk already of her leaving.

“I have always known this gift to be temporary,” Fauchelevent added,  “but I often wonder how God saw fit to give me her.”

Bruce had never been particularly religious, had believed only in seeking justice his whole life, had made it his crusade, had lost Dick sometimes, in that crusade. But, he thought, he could believe in Dick too. And maybe some higher power had made that happen, brought them together. For all that he was prone to overthinking, to brooding, to questioning, he didn’t know; he didn’t need to know. Maybe it was enough just to have this.

“She’ll come back,” he said abruptly.

Fauchelevent looked at him, and Bruce could tell he didn’t believe that, as if he felt unworthy of being around his daughter longer than she needed him.   
But Bruce knew better, knew that it wasn’t always up to the parent what their kids chose to do. He just knew his kids always came back—Dick after all their fights, and Damian too, Cass, no matter how far he’d sent her, Tim for all his independence was always there for Bruce, did whatever he asked, even Jason, though it was never perfect. Bruce understood Fauchelevent; he didn’t deserve it either, but who was he to stop them from returning?

(Of course, he was more likely than not to push them away again, but he tried.)

He cleared his throat, shaking those thoughts away, and said again, “She’ll come back. They always do.”

Fauchelevent still looked skeptical when he said, “I think there are many things you still do not know about me, Monsieur.”

Bruce smiled. “I’m sure,” he said. “And many things you, M. Fauchelvent, do not know about me.”

They lapsed into silence again, watching as Dick abandoned dancing and started showing off different tumbles and flips to Cosette’s delight. She laughed, clapping her hands together.

Fauchelevent’s face lit up watching them, watching his Cosette. “Wherever did you find that boy?” he asked, smiling

“A circus,” Bruce said, and laughed. “And really, you should know, he found me.” 

**Author's Note:**

> birthday gift to one of my favorite people, tumblr user catie-does-things
> 
> this one got away from me a bit, and there still feels not quite right, but it was the best I could do; it's also kind of hard imagining these two being so open with each other, but I figure they must have heard it was Catie's birthday :D
> 
> i also, just as a side note, still know very little about Tim and Cass


End file.
